Category: Software and Apps

What started as a buzzword is today a primary infrastructural concept. Cloud computing has made business simpler and more efficient; not to mention the cost advantages that it provides over legacy systems. With the proliferation of cloud, there has been an increase in the number of SaaS based tools and services that cater to various industries and business functions. If you are part of your company’s IT quality control, then cloud based testing tools are definitely a part of your arsenal. Given the plethora of options, which one do you choose? Here is a brief rundown of the five best cloud testing tools that you must look into.

CloudTest : QC teams routinely perform multiple kinds of testing. These various techniques can be categorized broadly into performance testing and functional testing. SOASTA CloudTest is a reliable tool that provides a single integrated platform for both these testing requirements. One of the unique selling propositions of CloudTest is what they call ‘visual test creation environment’ that provides a simple interface to create complex test cases. With the availability of real-time analytics, scalable infrastructure and intelligence systems, CloudTest is our first choice for cloud based testing tools.

GCLoad : If your test case includes checking for the load handling capacity of your application, then look no further than GCLoad’s Proxy Sniffer. This is, by far, the best cloud tool for load testing applications. This is a service that is available in both cloud and legacy formats; depending on how you want to use it. For load testing web applications that reside on hosted servers, the cloud-based Proxy Sniffer is a great bet to ensure the server can handle sufficient load. The scale of load testing can be varied on demand – from 100 concurrent users to as many as several thousands. If you are the kind who would like to get a free trial before buying the license, there is a free version of the tool available for short duration tests.

PractiTest : Best suited for startups and emerging IT companies, PractiTest is a test management solution offered as a ‘SaaS’ service (that is, Software as a Service). The benefit of such a tool is that it combines the robustness that comes with the legacy QC software applications with the scalability and affordability of present-day SaaS tools. PractiTest is built keeping the typical testing team in mind – it not only offers a testing solution, but also includes planning tools to schedule and manage various testing tasks, manage the tasks at hand and delegate various responsibilities among team members. Also, since it’s SaaS based, you do not have the heartburn that licensing software brings.

Besides the three cloud testing tools discussed above, we have several other tools like Parasoft, CloudTesting, LoadStorm and BlazeMeter. All these tools are built keeping specific requirements of the tester in mind. What tools do you use? What has your experience been with the tools? Tell us in the comments below.

So it’s that time of the year when all of the United States is going to be glued to TV watching the Super Bowl. This year’s face off is scheduled for February 3 when the San Francisco 49ers will be taking on the Baltimore Ravens. If you are an NFL fan and do not want to miss any of this action, there are several apps for NFL lovers already available – some apps focused on NFL news, some that let you bet on super bowl, and finally some that let you discuss the game with other NFL fans and root for your team. Here are 3 Android apps that you should absolutely download now.

NFL Mobile

This is one of the most popular apps on the Android marketplace having been downloaded over 10 million times. Why is this app absolutely necessary? Because apart from the news, NFL videos and game highlights, you also get to enjoy the live video on your Android tablet if you are a Verizon FiOS customer. This app is also going to be useful post the season with access to playoff scores and schedules. The only drawback is that you cannot simply plug your tablet to a TV via an HDMI cable and enjoy live playback. Also, depending on where you live, you may also have to face NFL blackouts. Download by using the QR code below

NFL Flick Quarterback

This app is not as popular as the one from Verizon, yet this is one of the most popular NFL apps available in the market today. Having been installed on over 100,000 devices, this app is the perfect game to enthuse an NFL fan. The app features all 32 official teams and delivers stunning 3D stadium environments, 120 player animations and hi-res graphics. The app is available at a price of $1.99 and is worth every cent of it. Use the QR code below to download the app to your mobile.

NFL 2012 Season Schedule

This app may not be as useful to you coming so late in the day, but if you have not had it already, you have missed out on one of the easier ways to follow the games. The app presents the schedule in a pretty lucid and clear format leaving no room for confusion. Definitely a must have, also considering that this app is available for free and has been downloaded somewhere between 10,000 and 50,000 times already.

The push-based user interface developed by Motorola – MotoBlur has now three added features to it. These new features are aimed at increasing the connectivity with the various social networking services like Facebook and the associated contacts. The three new features which have been added are Aloqa, Connected gallery and Connected Music and these new features are sure to enhance the users connectivity with the device.

Aloqa is a location based feature which will allow third party applications to feed users with the local data like restaurants, cinemas, deals, places etc. Connected Gallery integrates photos and videos from various softwares like Picasa, Flickr etc. and allows the user to browse through all the photos at once rather than having to open them individually. Connected Music allows users to tell friends visually what song they are listening to, buy tracks and also stream lyrics while playing tracks.

Motortola Atrix and the Cliq 2 users can upgrade their MotoBlur software for these added features.

While every other company has been busy launching their new smartphones and tablets, Intel, the largest producers of chips, has shown a preview of its tablet inteface MeeGo at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. MeeGo is a Linux based system which like Android, iOS, WebOS and Windows is a phone based OS. The MeeGo project was in the making for quite sometime now and both Nokia and Intel were involved in the development of this user interface. But now, Nokia is not involved with the mobile phone OS any more as it has now partnered with Microsoft and even abandoned its own phone OS Symbian and Intel did express its disappointment about the withdrawal at the MWC.

Apparently MeeGo is the only user interface that will enable dynamic panels on a mobile phone. We’ll have to wait and see how a new OS can fare amidst such fierce competition in the market.

Microsoft has announced that the Windows 7 Service Pack 1 will be made available to the general public from the 22nd of February. The Windows 7 SP1 for the time being has only seen a manufacturer’s release. The SP1 is coming with only a few minor updates as there have already been some updates to Windows 7 in the recent past. The SP1 is coming with client side support for windows 7 virtual machines that will enable Remote FX and dynamic memory. Though Windows 7 has been deemed to be the fastest selling OS ever produced by Microsoft, an upgrade was expected much earlier by many.

Microsoft is going to make the downloads available on their download center from the 22nd of February onwards. Those who buy the Windows 7 OS after 22nd would get the SP1 pre-installed.

As of now, this is only a rumor – Apple is planning to get rid of all its boxed softwares from the shelves in their stores. MacRumors has reported that the move can come quicker than expected as Apple plans to make space for its most earning products rather than the softwares, which earn very less when compared to other Mac products. Apple is planning to sell these softwares off their online stores, in the same way, they sell Apps off the App store on various touchscreen iDevices.

To be honest, Apple actually does not make much on these softwares when compared to their other products, although they get a 30 percent share of the profits. Ironically, they only made 786 million dollars on the Apple software front during the first fiscal quarter of 2011 while iPad has made a whopping 4 billion dollars.

So, it is better to bring down these softwares from the racks and make room for iPad 2 and iPhone 5.

Apple released the first beta version of the new iOS 4.3 operating system to developers earlier this month. Now, although there is no word as yet from Apple regarding the official launch date for the new platform, it is getting increasingly evident that the company may soon launch the new iOS to customers. The app review staff at Cupertino is learned to have started approving app updates that support iOS 4.3 features. StreamToMe, a media streaming iPhone application has recently released a new version that brings “Support for AirPlay video (requires iOS 4.3)”.

Verizon would be launching a CDMA variant of iPhone 4 from February that will include features like personal mobile hotspot. The iOS 4.3 launch is expected to happen earlier than that in order to bring similar features to existing iPhone subscribers. Are you looking forward to this release? We will update you as and when that happens.

Those of you who have jailbroken your iPhone or iPod Touch may have inevitably used the Cydia app store to browse and install one of those applications not available on the Apple App Store. Now Jay Freeman, the developer of Cydia has released a new version of his app store that will make it easy for users to easily reinstall previously purchased applications using the ‘Manage Account‘ feature.

The new feature is extremely useful for users who have upgraded their handset to a new iOS firmware or for users who have upgraded to a new handset altogether. Jay Freeman has also indicated that yet another Cydia update is on the cards and that this new version should come with features to rate and comment on apps besides backing up the installed jailbreak apps.

This is a rumor that you must take with loads of skepticism. Folks at a popular podcast show have claimed that Apple could be working on integrating its popular iTunes service with its Safari web browser in a bid to spike up the market share of the latter.

According to the source, the company may have already thwarted its plans to build cloud-based iTunes service that would be accessible from any browser. Instead, the new plans will make Safari the only browser that could load the music service. The source further adds,

“Moving iTunes organizational side-bar into Safari isn’t a monumental task. Safari would skyrocket in use as a result of integrating the software titles together.”

The news-quote appears dubious not just because of the untrusted source. It’s also because Apple might not be hedging its iTunes market share in its bid to improve Safari’s market share. Although iTunes is a pretty popular application, the software is pretty bulky and might not be ideally suited for use as an internet browsing application – something that would require it to be pretty lightweight.

In any case, this is a very interesting rumor and we look forward to such a move sometime down the line. An announcement in this regard is expected around the iPod Touch media event in September. That’s a long time from now and hopefully, we will hear a lot more in this regard by then.

If you have been enjoying the free music downloads on Nokia Ovi Music unlimited, here is some bad news. The Finland based company has decided to pull the plug on unlimited free music in as many as 27 countries. The Nokia Ovi Music Unlimited service was launched in 2008 in partnership with popular music labels like Vivendi, EMI, Warner Music Group and Sony, and was seen as a viable alternative to Apple’s iTunes.

While not much information has been revealed about the reason for discontinuation, the company has noted that lack of interest in music tied with DRM is one of the primary reasons. DRM-free tracks will continue to be sold in all 38 countries Nokia Ovi is available on.

There is however a silver lining here if you are from India, China, Indonesia, Brazil, Turkey or South Africa. Nokia Ovi users in India, China and Indonesia will continue to enjoy 12 month free music subscription while those in Brazil, Turkey and South Africa will enjoy six months’ subscription.

If you are a user in one of the countries where the service has been plugged, do note that existing tracks will continue to be available. It is the newer tracks that you will be unable to download.